Does the Church have a role in politics?
This week, the church has found itself once again criticised for blundering into politics and talking about matters it does not understand. It is not the role of the Church of England, or any other church or faith group, to support one political party over another. The Church does have a role in politics, however, and those being challenged by the church should at least pause to ask why.
The most recent catalyst is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Easter Sunday sermon, in which he criticised the government’s policy to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. The principle behind the policy must, he said, “stand the judgement of God, and it cannot” He went on to say that “sub-contracting out our responsibilities…is the opposite of the nature of God, who himself took responsibility for our failures”.
The issue has become a row because the Prime Minister was reported to have told Conservative MPs that the Archbishop and the BBC had been “less vociferous” in their criticism of President Putin than of the new Rwanda asylum scheme. The Church of England’s Head of News, John Bingham, replied that if this story was true, it was a “disgraceful slur”: the Archbishops of Canterbury and York had described Russia’s attack on Ukraine as “an act of great evil”.
It is part of the Christian faith to be present and speaking in the public square. The message of the faith, as St Paul wrote, is about reconciling people to God, through Jesus Christ, with Christians as God’s ambassadors. This cannot be done solely within cathedral cloisters, though those cloisters have their role. Being church is being public. To be authentic, church interventions have to be based on grace and not ‘thou shalt and thou shalt not’ moralistic commands. To be otherwise is hypocrisy because no one is perfect. The most resonant interventions combine moral clarity with humility.
Many church interventions in public debate over the past few decades have been rooted in or resonant with the Christian Socialist tradition. Archbishop William Temple, that great template for archbishops toying with commenting on the state of society, chaired the famous Malvern conference during the Second World War, working closely with the influential Christian Socialist and Labour thinker RH Tawney. The Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher chafed at criticism from the church as unemployment rose, most notably with the publication of ‘Faith in the City’ which examined urban poverty and found government policies to be a major cause. Churches have consistently supported more spending and action to combat global poverty.
Temple was a powerful moral voice calling on governments and society to follow Christian principles. He had a clear view about how the church should engage with politics, which he outlined in his book, Christianity and the Social Order. Temple believed that the church had a duty to highlight Christian principles and point out where the social order was in conflict with them. It was not the Church’s job to prescribe detailed policies – it was up to Christians and others (with their particular knowledge and skills) of all political persuasions to put Christian principles into practice.
The current Archbishop’s intervention on asylum seeker policy, and indeed his statements against Russia’s war with Ukraine, are in that tradition, which is why complaints that critics are not posing alternative policies misses the mark in his case. It is not his role to sort out immigration policy, but it is his role to speak out if he believes it runs against Christian principles. It is not only his role as a minister of the church, it is his constitutional role. For the Church of England is still very much part of our constitution with bishops as (the only temporary) members of the House of Lords. The very fact we are debating Archbishop Welby’s words suggests they carry some weight but even if he was ignored, his duty to speak would remain.
Values matter in politics. The Christian faith has been a foundation of our democracy. Society has yet to work out what to do if you try to take God, or at least a sense of absolute morality, completely out of politics, as David Aaronovitch has also noted. For the danger is that we are left with a Nietzschean world where all that matters is wielding power unrestrained, which would be a true horror and the end of democracy. Temple showed us we all have a responsibility to work for a society which promotes the common good. And if we do nothing, are we prepared to be responsible for the consequences? It is why, for the Christian, thinking rigorously about how to apply Christian values to politics and policy-making, and then acting, is so important. Hence Christians on the Left.
Stephen Beer is Christians on the Left Political Communications Officer.
